Birks Veteran Ready for Season 2017

Goalkeeper Julian Torresan is back at West Torrens Birkalla for his 12th season in black and yellow.

Torresan is looking forward to the year ahead as he takes his position in goals as the Senior side Captain once again.

“This year should be good, hopefully we will be playing Top 3 football again and pushing one step further to make the top 2.

“We have worked a lot on recruitment this year with a lot of new faces, some young boys from the State League like (Jordan) Spadavecchia, so we have a lot more depth this year which is what I think we lacked last year.

“Throughout the season we did well playing through but when it came to Finals and everyone was tired and injured, we didn’t have that backup that we needed and I think that will make the difference this year.”

Along with new signings that include Davide Zerillo, Yas Sudic, Kristin Konstandopoulos and Hayden Walter, there are the well-known Birkalla faces who will help Torresan on the field with their skills as well as their guidance.

“This year we have a leadership group which consists of myself, Tom (Dittmar), JP (Cirillo), Adam (Lecornu) and Ian (Kamau), so that is going to be our core leadership group.

“Those boys are the most experienced players that we have and they know the way we played our football last year and we want to pass that on to the new players; everyone in that group is quite approachable and easy to talk to too.”

As for who the team to beat this season is – apart from Birks, of course, the veteran thinks it will be the 2016 Grand Final runners up.

“I would have to say Adelaide City will be the team to beat this year. They recruited well and they have retained most of their team from last year, so I don’t think they will have a lot to change, so I think they will be the team to beat!”

As pre-season nears its end, Torresan is well aware that the season is approaching, and quickly.

“It has been a bit shaky because we have had so many injuries and people going away, so we haven’t actually fielded our starting 11 yet, so we are hoping in the next week or two we can start to field our proper starting 11.

“There’s not a lot of time left, there’s only 2-3 weeks, so we are probably about a week behind schedule at the moment but I know it will come together.”